


Happy Birthday, Severus

by geri_chan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 22:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3184736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geri_chan/pseuds/geri_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during PoA; Snape adamantly states that he does not want a birthday party, but isn't sure how he feels when he unexpectedly gets his wish.</p>
<p>Written for the <a href="http://snapedom.livejournal.com/tag/birthday%20party">birthday party</a> celebration at the Snapedom comm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Birthday, Severus

**Author's Note:**

> Originally archived on Ink Stained Fingers on 01/13/08.

Severus Snape hated birthdays, particularly his own. Well, it wasn't so much the birthdays that he hated, as much as the fact that the Headmaster always insisted on making a big fuss over all the staff members' birthdays--including Snape's, in spite of his protests that he didn't want a party, cake, or presents of any kind. The year before last, there had been a "surprise" party in the staff room, which had been decorated with green and silver balloons. The following year, Snape had skipped the morning staff meeting. However, that had not been such a wise move after all, because at dinner that night in the Great Hall, Dumbledore had caused silver and green confetti to shower over the entire room with a dramatic wave of his wand, then presented Snape with a huge cake with the Slytherin House crest sculpted in buttercream icing. Snape would have fled the Hall at that point, except that the sneaky old man had cast a temporary Sticking Charm on Snape's chair, so that he had been stuck there until the festivities were over and pieces of the birthday cake had been served to all the students, although not a few of them found it difficult to eat with the Potions Master glaring down at them murderously from the Head Table.  
  
And if the public humiliation wasn't bad enough, there were all the useless birthday gifts. Invariably, Hagrid would give him a tin of something inedible: cookies with the weight and consistency of rocks, or treacle tarts so sticky they would glue your mouth shut if you were stupid enough to try eating them. Though a couple of years ago, the cookies had actually served a purpose: Snape had fed them to Fluffy as payback for the time the dog had bitten him, and as expected, the beast had gotten a bellyache.   
  
McGonagall would sometimes give him something useful, like a book or a subscription to Potions Monthly, depending on whether or not she was holding a grudge about Slytherin winning the House Cup. If she was, then he'd get a scarf or sweater in Gryffindor red and gold. Flitwick would always give him some silly toy or trinket, like a set of Exploding Snap cards.  
  
But Dumbledore's gifts were always the worst: a box of joke items from Zonko's ("because you seemed in need of cheering up, Severus"), a singing birthday card, a pair of hideous fuzzy rainbow-striped socks (hand-knitted by the old man himself), and last year's gift, a set of green flannel pajamas printed with a pattern of snakes. But not proper, menacing Slytherin-style snakes; no, instead they were cheerful cartoonish snakes with smiling faces. Snape had angrily crumpled them up and thrown them into the trash, but no matter how many times he tried to discard them, he would always find them back in his dresser drawer, cleaned, ironed, and neatly folded. Either the house-elves did not approve of him throwing away Dumbledore's gifts, or the old man had put some sort of charm on them--although Snape sourly thought of it as more of a hex. So the pajamas languished in the dresser along with the fuzzy socks, hidden beneath some old underwear.  
  
Only Sinistra's gifts showed any modicum of good taste--usually a bottle of good scotch or fine brandy. But then again, Sinistra was a Slytherin, and Slytherins always had good taste. (Snape conveniently put any thought of Lucius Malfoy's white peacocks out of his head, for the sake of argument.)  
  
"So what would you like for your birthday this year, my boy?" Dumbledore asked genially towards the end of December.  
  
"Nothing!" Snape snarled, and Dumbledore blinked, as if taken aback by the vehemence of his response. It was true that Snape always gave him the same reply every year, but this year he was in an especially bad mood, with one of his former childhood enemies having escaped from Azkaban, and another teaching at Hogwarts. And to add insult to injury, he had been ordered to brew the Wolfsbane Potion for Lupin. Though even without Dumbledore's order, he would still have had to brew the potion in order to keep the students safe from a rampaging werewolf. What on earth was the Headmaster thinking, hiring a monster to teach the students?! Snape found himself growing angrier by the second as he thought about it.  
  
"I want no parties, no gifts, no cake or confetti, and no bloody singing cards!" he shouted. "No humiliating spectacles in front of the entire school! All I want for my birthday is to be left in peace! Not that you ever care about what I want, so I don't know why you bother to ask, since you'll just go ahead and do as you damn well please, the same as you do every year!"  
  
"Well, if that's the way you feel it about it, Severus," Dumbledore said mildly, and walked off without another word.  
  
Snape wasn't fooled by the old man's words, and he braced himself for whatever unpleasant surprise Dumbledore had concocted this year. No birthday cards or gifts arrived at breakfast, which didn't reassure Snape because there was a staff meeting scheduled after the morning meal. He didn't skip the meeting this year, since he had learned from past experience that trying to avoid his fate only made it worse in the end.  
  
However, there was no cake or party at the staff meeting, either. Now Snape was really beginning to get nervous. Trying to anticipate the old man's scheming made him so irritable that he took a record number of points off that morning from just about every student in his classes except the Slytherins. He couldn't bring himself to deduct points from his own House, not even to vent his frustration, but he did give Crabbe and Goyle detention for accidentally knocking over their cauldron. Draco opened his mouth to object, but took one look at Snape's face and abruptly closed it again in a rare display of common sense.  
  
Nothing happened at lunch, either. "Is something wrong, Severus?" Lupin asked, all wide-eyed innocent concern. "You seem a little tense."  
  
 _As if you really care_ , Snape thought, sneering at the werewolf. "There is nothing wrong with me, Lupin," he replied in a cold voice, "other than the fact that I have to teach an especially dunderheaded bunch of Gryffindors this year, along with the added burden of having to brew your potion every month."  
  
"I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you, Severus," Lupin said, with such apparently heartfelt sincerity that no one but Snape would have doubted him. "I am extremely grateful to you for brewing the potion that eases my...er...illness."  
  
"Yes, you show your gratitude in so many ways," Snape retorted bitterly. "Such as your lesson with the boggart in the wardrobe."  
  
"I've told you many times, it was not my intention to--" Lupin protested.  
  
"If you truly wish to thank me, just be silent and leave me alone, Lupin," Snape interrupted, and somewhat to his surprise, the werewolf obeyed, which left Snape free to brood in silence about the birthday surprise that Dumbledore must surely have planned for dinner.  
  
Snape took more points off his afternoon classes, and issued more detentions, and wondered if he ought to spend dinner locked up in his dungeon quarters. But Merlin only knew what Dumbledore would do in that case--send Howlers loud enough to be heard in every room in the castle, perhaps? Have confetti and balloons rain all over the dungeon? Or...Snape shuddered at the thought...perhaps enlist Lupin's help to have the boggart-Snape-in-a-dress parade through the Great Hall singing "Happy Birthday"! No, it was best to face the music and get it over with.  
  
But there were no balloons or confetti, no cake or presents, no singing boggarts. As the other teachers chatted about Quidditch and their classes, it finally began to dawn on Snape that miraculously, the old man had heeded his wishes after all.  
  
Snape ought to have felt relieved, but instead found himself growing increasingly vexed, and he didn't know why. It wasn't as if he liked being embarrassed in public, and it wasn't as if he ever ate any of Hagrid's inedible gifts, or ever played with the toys that Flitwick gave him. It wasn't as if he had ever worn the fuzzy socks or cartoon-snake pajamas. He would miss Sinistra's annual bottle of scotch or brandy, but he didn't really drink much alcohol, as it was dangerous for a spy to overindulge in such things, for obvious reasons.  
  
Snape had never liked birthdays, anyway, even before he had started working at Hogwarts. As a child, they had been nothing to celebrate, as far as he was concerned. Oh, his mother would usually bake a cake, and scrape up enough money to buy him a small present--usually a battered book or two from the used bookstore, although when times were really hard, he would get a hand-knitted scarf or sweater instead. But his father would almost invariably ruin the evening--as he did most holidays and special occasions--by getting drunk and picking a fight with his mother, and soon the two of them would be shouting and screaming and (on his mother's part) weeping, leaving Snape forgotten and unnoticed to creep to his room with a slice of cake and his pathetic presents.  
  
Well, it wasn't really accurate to say that his father had ruined only special occasions. He had behaved the same way almost every day of Snape's life for as long as he could remember. So a birthday was nothing special in Snape's opinion; just another miserable day to be forgotten about as soon as possible.  
  
Lily had given him birthday presents until the year that their friendship had irrevocably fallen apart, but while he had appreciated them, it had not been enough to make the day a truly happy occasion. As a child, he had been embarrassed that he couldn't afford to give her anything nice in return on her birthday, and it had emphasized the differences between them: Lily with her happy, loving, normal family, and Snape with his poverty-stricken parents who couldn't be bothered to stop fighting just one day out of the year to wish their son a happy birthday. And as an adult, any memories of Lily brought back feelings of guilt and regret for the way he had inadvertently betrayed her and caused the death of his best friend.  
  
No, birthdays were nothing to celebrate, and Snape told himself that he was very happy and relieved that the Headmaster finally seemed to have gotten that through his thick skull. Snape determinedly kept telling himself how happy he was as he ground his teeth together and stabbed viciously at his dinner with his knife and fork.  
  
"Goodness, Severus," Lupin said mildly. "Is that chicken not dead enough for you yet?" He looked down at his own plate. "I assure you, mine isn't moving, although perhaps the house elves didn't cook yours enough."  
  
"Oh, shut up, Lupin!" Snape snapped, and Lupin obeyed, but the werewolf's meekness only served to annoy Snape even more. All year long, Lupin had been trailing after him, trying to apologize for the past, insisting that he hadn't known what Black had planned. Actually, although Snape would never admit it out loud, he already knew this. Once his initial anger had cooled down a little, he had realized that Lupin was too much of a goody-two-shoes to consent to such a plan, and smart enough to realize that he would be thrown in Azkaban for murder if Black's "prank" had succeeded. But he kept up the pretense, because it gave him a good excuse to hate Lupin--and a good reason to ignore the traitorous stirrings of attraction that he thought had long ago been destroyed by the sight of a snarling, murderous werewolf in the Shrieking Shack.  
  
Snape had no appetite, but forced himself to stay through the meal, because if Dumbledore got the mistaken impression that Snape was disappointed about the lack of a birthday party, Merlin only knew what might happen next year. So he forced himself to chew and swallow without really tasting what he was eating, and to complain about the incompetency of his students, as he did at every meal.  
  
Finally, dinner was over and he was allowed to stalk back to his quarters and slam the door. As he settled down at his desk to grade homework assignments, he thought, somewhat petulantly, that he didn't want a party or presents, but someone could at least have wished him a simple "happy birthday".  
  
Snape was taking some meager satisfaction in marking the errors on the homework assignments with blood-red ink, scratching the quill across the parchment with such force that he nearly tore the paper. A gentle tap sounded at the door, and Snape looked up, scowling at the interruption.  
  
"It's me, Remus," Lupin called out when Snape didn't answer right away.  
  
"That is hardly an incentive for me to open the door, Lupin," Snape drawled sarcastically, but he did set aside his papers and get up to answer the door. "What do you want?" he asked curtly. "It's too early for you to start taking the Wolfsbane Potion."  
  
Lupin's hands were hidden behind his back, and he gave Snape a charming, mischievous smile--all of which immediately aroused Snape's suspicions and caused him to reach for his wand.  
  
"Wait, don't hex me!" Lupin said hastily. "I've only come to wish you a happy birthday!"  
  
"What?" Snape asked incredulously, slowly lowering his wand.  
  
Lupin smiled, slowly bringing his hands into view. One held a dusty bottle of wine with a ribbon tied around the neck, and the other held a plate with a small chocolate-frosted cake on it, just big enough to feed two people. There was a single candle stuck in the center of the cake.  
  
"I don't celebrate birthdays," Snape said haughtily, but felt inexplicably cheered, and stepped aside to allow Lupin to enter the room.  
  
"Yes, Albus told us that you didn't want any fuss made over your birthday, but it just didn't seem right to me to let it pass unnoticed," Lupin said apologetically, setting the plate down on Snape's desk next to the homework parchments.  
  
"Typical Gryffindor, always doing as you bloody well please," Snape snorted.  
  
"I'm afraid so," Lupin said with a smile. "But I hope this will convince you to forgive me."  
  
He handed the bottle to Snape, who examined the label and exclaimed in surprise, "This is elf-made wine! Since when can you afford such a thing?"  
  
Lupin continued to smile, unperturbed by Snape's implied insult. "I've had it for a long time," he replied, evading the question. "I've been saving it for a special occasion."  
  
"And my birthday is a special occasion?" Snape asked skeptically.  
  
"It is," Lupin replied quietly, and his smile grew warmer, and Snape flushed slightly. He told himself that it was only due to the heat from the fireplace spreading through the room.  
  
Snape suspected that the wine had originally been a gift from Black to Lupin. He nearly refused it on principle, but the thought of how outraged Black would be that Lupin was sharing his gift with greasy old Snivellus caused Snape to smile. Lupin looked startled but touchingly pleased by his response, and Lupin's smile grew several degrees warmer, and Snape felt his skin heat correspondingly.  
  
"Well, I don't normally invite Gryffindors over for my birthday, but since you come bearing elf-made wine, I shall make an exception this once," Snape said, flicking his wand and conjuring up two sets of glasses, plates, and forks.   
  
"Thank you, Severus," Lupin replied. He lit the candle on the cake with a flick of his own wand and said teasingly, "Make a wish."  
  
"How childish can you get, Lupin?" Snape asked, rolling his eyes. "Never mind; don't answer that," he added as Lupin opened his mouth. "It was a rhetorical question." Snape didn't believe in birthday wishes, but he supposed there was no harm in entertaining the possibility that maybe, just maybe, things could be different with Lupin from now on. The werewolf was tolerable company when the other Marauders weren't around, and two of them were dead, while the third would soon be dead or back in Azkaban--preferably the former.  
  
He blew out the candle, and Lupin asked, "Do you have a knife, Severus?"  
  
Snape just sniffed disdainfully and said, "Sectumsempra," cutting the cake neatly in half with a dramatic flourish of his wand.  
  
Lupin burst into delighted laughter. "Ah, trust you to use a Dark spell to slice a birthday cake, Severus!"  
  
Snape briefly pondered whether he should feel insulted or not, then decided that Lupin hadn't meant for the remark to be offensive. Rather, he was smiling at Snape as if he were inviting him to share in the joke.   
  
"What else would a proper Slytherin use?" Snape asked silkily. He noted with satisfaction that Lupin shivered slightly at the sound of his voice, and it didn't seem to be a shiver of revulsion--quite the opposite, in fact.  
  
"What else, indeed?" Lupin chuckled. He used a spell to levitate the slices of cake onto the plates, and poured the wine into the glasses in the normal fashion. He raised his glass and said, "Happy birthday, Severus."  
  
Snape clinked his glass against Lupin's and thought to himself that maybe birthdays weren't really so bad after all.


End file.
